Top 5 Reasons to Invest in a Three Year Spring CSA Share
Featherstone Farm has been working for years to develop its vision of building “gutter connected” High Tunnels for spring, fall and winter crop production. But progress has been relatively slow, amidst all of the other challenges of the pandemic era.
This spring, however, we are about to jump start this “new generation” CSA vision, with construction of the first 30’ x 240’ gutter connected tunnel that we know of, anywhere in the state of Minnesota. Here are the top 5 reasons for you to become a “3 year Spring CSA Member” to help make this happen:
#5 The Crops
High tunnels will allow us to produce way more basic winter crops like cut spinach and salad greens, and spring CSA crops like bunched greens, snap peas, green top beets and carrots- the list is long- just by virtue of protecting the garden beds inside from hard cold and wind, and from damaging rainfall. As a 3 year member, you will guarantee yourself a diverse mix of these crops for 3 consecutive “spring seasons” …at the dropoff site of your choice.
#4 The Spring Picnic
As a 3 Year Spring CSA member, you will be invited to a first-of-its-kind field day event at Featherstone Farm, in April or May 2024 (details TBD). This will be an opportunity to see your investment dollars at work in the field. There will be tours of the new gutter connect tunnel, and demonstrations of how work in tunnels differs from that just a few feet away outside. And of course there will be a fine picnic lunch, featuring the very best, freshest field-grown salad greens and other crops, produced right in “your tunnels”
#3 The Innovation Push
There are hundreds of standard high tunnels on vegetable farms throughout the upper Midwest. And there are many heated gutter connected greenhouses for use mainly in the floral industry. But to my knowledge, there are no gutter connected vegetable high tunnels anywhere in the state of Minnesota. So our project will be a real experiment with design, engineering and ventilation. Why do this? From the standpoint of crop production, width matters: a 60’ wide pair of tunnels has far less “edge effect” (cold and moisture creeping in from the perimeter). This unlocks a wide range of new crop possibilities, that would not be possible in a standard 30’ wide tunnel.
#2 Radical Change (the good kind!)
The word radical is of course associated with change at the roots of things. By investing in a 3 Year Spring membership, you are participating in a transformative effort. From the simple, radical idea of going back to a paper check (an old school idea for sure!), to the big picture idea of fueling a once-in-a-generation strategic shift at Featherstone Farm. you are helping all of us at FF to re-invent ourselves and our ways of doing things, for the next 30 years of success.
#1 Community Supported Agriculture
The Featherstone Farm CSA program began with ~25 members in 1997 (many of you are still with us! J). In the 25+ years since then, members have been absolutely vital partners in fueling projects large and small, from building our wonderful new packing shed at our current location following flooding in 2007, to building a 34kw solar array on our shed roof (2011). These are things that we would likely have done one way or another… eventually, But having community partners (more than just customers!) in the funding and support of these things over time, has made them happen way sooner that we otherwise might have afforded. And this in turn has allowed us to try more things, to be more innovative, to push the envelope on standard the CSA idea, in ways we might not otherwise have been able to do. Building a first-of-its-kind gutter connected high tunnel is another in this line of farmer-community collaborations, that make what we do here at Featherstone Farm both possible and richly satisfying.
Please consider becoming a 3 Year Spring CSA Member this spring!
Gratefully,
Jack